Pre-assigning participants in Teams meeting Breakout Rooms

Breakout rooms allow a meeting organizer to split your attendees into multiple online rooms for discussion and collaboration in Teams.

Meeting organizers who schedule a meeting can create breakout rooms in advance then pre-assign members to the breakout rooms. 

Creating breakout rooms in advance of a meeting

  1. Using the Microsoft Teams desktop software, in the left column, select Calendar. Open the Teams meeting you scheduled. If the meeting uses a channel, all attendees must be individually listed as required attendees in the meeting for pre-assignment. From the top, click or tap the Breakout rooms tab.

    Select Breakout Rooms tab

  2. Click or tap the Create rooms button.

    Create Breakout Rooms

  3. A prompt appears to create breakout rooms. Select the number of breakout rooms to create. You can create up to 50 breakout rooms. Click or tap the Add rooms button.

    Select the number of Breakout Rooms

  4. The rooms are created. Click or tap the Assign participants button.

    Assign to Breakout Rooms

  5. Choose how you want participants assigned to rooms. If you select automatically, Microsoft Teams will place the participants into the rooms at random. If you select manually, you can assign participants to specific rooms. For the next steps, manual breakout rooms assignment will be shown. If you select the automatically option, skip to Step 12.

    Select manual

  6. Click or tap Next.

    Click next

  7. Microsoft Teams starts creating the breakout rooms. After a moment, you are presented with the rooms. Click or tap the Assign participants button.

    Assign Participants

  8. Hover over the name of the participant to reveal the person's checkbox and select the checkbox.

    Check the box of participant

  9. The assign room drop-down menu appears. Select a room for this participant. You can hover over each participant then check the checkbox, allowing you to select multiple persons to add them all to a single breakout room at once.

    Select room

  10. When done with manual assignment, click or tap the Assign button.

    Select Assign

  11. You will be asked to move participants to the breakout rooms. Click or tap Move.

    Move to Breakout Rooms

  12. Microsoft Teams assigns the participants into breakout rooms.

    If you want to rename the rooms...

    1. Click or tap the three-dots/more actions icon.

      Select three-dots icon

    2. Select Edit.

      Edit name

    3. A prompt appears to give the room a new name. Enter the new name then click or tap Save.

      Save room name
    If you want a timer for breakout rooms, see Setting a Time Limit for Breakout Rooms. The timer needs to be set before you open the breakout rooms.

  13. You have created breakout rooms and preassigned participants to them. Click or tap the Close button.

    Close the tab

Setting a Time Limit for Breakout Rooms

The Breakout Rooms Timer automatically moves members back to main meeting. The meeting organizer can set the timer in Breakout Rooms by following these steps:

  1. From the Breakout rooms tab, click or tap the gear icon to reveal the Room Settings menu.

    Breakout Rooms settings

  2. Click or tap the toggle to activate "Set a time limit."

    Breakout Rooms time limit

  3. Choose a time limit from the hours and minutes drop-down menus.
  4. Click or tap the "x" icon to save the settings.

Back to Create Breakout Rooms

Seeing issues with Breakout Rooms?

If you encounter any issues with Breakout Rooms, please contact the IT Services Help Desk.